As of today, the HMVF Once More Onto The Beach campaign is launched. Everything is now in please to be a part of history that we can help write.

The whole plan is on the Front Page and have added some of it here too. Bodge Deep has done an amazing job with the banner and should be justly proud of it. Artist Rifles is busy behind the scenes too and will help drive this forward. You can get to the article, the methods of payment by clicking on the campaign that you will see throughout the site.

I have some case studies to go up as well and just awaiting the images from the NVA.

Any question at all then please just let me know - here is the article/news/update....

The HMVF Once More Onto The Beach campaign in association with the Normandy Veterans Association.

The Final Battle - it is now our turn.

“Help us make one last journey to our D-Day beaches in honour of our fallen”, plead veterans.

First the back ground to this campaign and then how to make payment and some case studies

The Normandy Veterans Association, or NVA for short, wants to raise £300,000. This would enable them to send at least 1000 veterans back to the invasion beaches for the 65th anniversary of D-Day, June 6th 2009. They want to be able to stand along side their fellow US and Canadian brothers in arms. For most this will be their last time as age and health is taking its toll.

You might think the British government would pay for our war heroes to return, after all, they helped save the free world? Unfortunately and sadly this is not the case. The USA and Canadian governments have promised funding for their veterans to return. They are paying for them to travel thousands of miles. The round trip from New York to Paris is at least 7,270 miles. If coming from the west coast of the USA then it is an 11,332 round trip.

The British government is refusing to pay for veterans to cross, what is in some cases just 24 miles of water to France.

So what does that have to do with HMVF? Well actually it has everything to do with us – because we are going to help raise money for the NVA. We are going to be responsible for getting some of our men back there.

This is started with a post on the HMVF forum from Neil Plunkett (Artist’s Rifles). Neil posted up about the NVA trying to raise £300,000 for the veterans. On June the 6th this year my good lady bought me a newspaper because on the front page was this story. I had pinned it to the beam thinking that we must do something about this. When Neil posted up a newsletter from the NVA regarding the campaign then the fuse was lit.

I contact the NVA and said that we would want to be part of their campaign and how can we help. They were more than happy to hear from us and wanted our help. I was very aware that it would be important to me to have HMVF working in association with the NVA. It is importance to give HMVF’s campaign credence and credibility. So I have discussed everything with the NVA. We have agreed upon and arranged all payments options and protocols. The HMVF Once More Onto The Beach banner and logo has been more than approved and is something to be proud of.

I have told the NVA that HMVF is going to raise at least £4000, which will enable 10 of our men to return for the 65th.

Why are we doing this?

Because we can and because it is the right thing to do. Ironically our hobby is based on machines that were part of the death and destruction that these men went through. This hobby needs to help with the final battle. This is something that we can all be proud of; this is giving something back. Yes there are other charities that we all give to, but I am not asking you to change that. I am simply asking that we do this last thing for these men. We will be responsible for getting at least ten veterans to Normandy, that is pretty profound. We can talk to these men and will be able to meet them on the beaches and look them in the eye. This is a very special campaign and will be a very moving experience.

This is how we are going raise our target of £4000.

I am going to ask you all for a donation. I am personally donating £400 – that is our first veteran returning to Normandy. Nine left…

I am committed to this and I’ll give you my word that I will phone, write, email or meet every single company in our hobby that I can think of for a donation. I won’t rest until we have hit our target – once we have reached this, I will raise the game. It is time to kiss egos goodbye.

Every company that makes a donation we will list them and they will have their company banner on the supporters page. This will click through to their website if they have one.

I do not expect everyone to match me with £400 as in true HMVF style there is no pressure, no right or wrong, no big stick. Just do what you can. Even if you have something that you can sell or auction to a fellow member then let’s do it. Every pound is going to make a difference. Don’t take your MV for a weekend – the money you would spend on fuel can be sent for the campaign. Small things make a big difference. Think about that.

Other ways you can help.

Tell everyone you know and ask them for a donation. You do not have to be a member of HMVF to help – remember what I said earlier, kiss those egos goodbye. If you belong to a group, trust, association then tell everyone about it at your next meeting. If you belong to other forums then ask the Admin there if you could post up some details about it – even better, ask them if they can mention it in their newsletters. Drop a line to your local newspaper or send me their details and I will call them myself. I will have some fliers made to hand out at shows – I will send you some. Speak to your local radio station - get on the news. If you sell your vehicle then be brave and donate £50 or what you can afford to the campaign.

Tell me anyone you think I should speak to and I will call them.

OK, how do I make a donation?HMVF and the NVA have worked out the best way to make payment so that we cover all avenues. We can accept cheques, bank transfer, cash and PayPal. We need to make sure that all payments have the reference of HMVF on them so that we can track all payments made. I can send everyone receipts if you need them for your records or for your accountant. Please see below for payment options:

The NVA do not have a PayPal account and asked if we could use ours. We then forward payment to their account every time we have over £50 in the account. Please be aware that PayPal will take a fee from your donation of around 3%. I am speaking to them to see if we can get this waived.

We will have a running total as we go so please keep checking back and we will be discussing it in full on the forum. A massive thank you goes to Rupert Fox (Bodge Deep) who designed the Once More Onto The Beach banner – the chairman of the NVA fell in love with it, thanks Roop.

My full contact details are below if you would like to discuss anything about the campaign or can help in any way:

A very worth cause. The WWII Re-enacting forum has been planning to get the ball rolling with a similar campaign and intends to launch it soon. Let's hope together we can send some of our veterans back to Normandy.

Thank you to everyone who has been of helpso far and thank you for the email tonight Manny.

Below is an update I posted in HMVF - I have lifted it from there so may not, in places, make sense but you will get the message...How special is this place then? Is something I often ask myself - well I think I can now answer that. Please take a look at the front page for the latest total. I say latest because we ain't seen nothing yet, we can and we will do a lot more.

Speaking with the NVA on Friday it is safe to say that we have touched many hearts within the association. And to be honest it has touched me too. I have been closed to tears when the donations come in, for many reasons. People have sent money at a time when people can't afford it and when people have massive demands of young families, all of this is very humbling. We even had £4.80 donated from a 9 year old girl and said that it was the last of her birthday money - you can't really ask for more than that.

We set out to raise £4000 in five months - we broke though that in less than seven days...There could be a couple of reasons for this

1. I completely under estimated what we could achieve 2. Members of HMVF have a massive amount of respect for our veterans and our fallen men.

The generosity from everyone here just goes to show what can be done with a bit of energy, a bit a vision and more importantly decent people. People have sent money from the sale of the vehicle, people have had banners made at they own expense and stood and rattled the donations tins. Bodge Deeps banner has certainly set the tone and people have understood its message and we have had good wishes sent from around the world because of it.

So where do we go from here? Well that is up to us all so here is a question for you – where do you want it to go from here??

Should we raise our game and set the new target for 20 veterans? Give me your thoughts and we will get on with it but it will need further commitment from all of us, are you ready for that?

We have a couple of things that we have up our sleeve and it is something that Snapper is working on. I will leave it up to him to tell us all as I may be putting the cart before the horse – what I can say is that it may call for a photo shoot for a newspaper based in London somewhere. Through the NVA we are linking up with a professional PR company so we can work the whole of the media throughout the land.

The Bunker Bash have adopted the campaign as their charity for 2009 – when these guys get their teeth into something, stuff gets done. I had a call from someone on Friday with regards to a well known event and they have completely ripped up their plans for next year and have started rewriting the event…all in aid of the HMVF campaign. Christ it just gets better and better and it all goes back to what I said earlier look what can be achieved with a bit of energy, a bit a vision and more importantly decent people.

We are working with a well known gentleman in the re-enacting world. He made contact after seeing the appeal on forums throughout the country and offered his help in any shape or form. He is going to head up the re-enacting hobby for us and his group alone has over 300 members. I have yet to talk with the magazines editors of our hobby but I am sure they would be more than happy to give this some column inches in the magazines over the next five months – John are you listening?!

I know that we are in tough times but we really can be proud of ourselves here - these men aren't just human beings, they aren't just normal vets, they are our brothers, our fathers, our grandfathers and our hero’s - these men are Normandy Veterans.

Lets work the hell out of this campaign and look these men in the eye, with pride in ours. Once More Onto The Beach.

_________________Jack BeckettDorset

HMVF – winners of the Bart Vanderveen award 2008. For outstanding contribution to the military vehicle movement.

Would just like to give you an update on the campaign. With a very kind donation from the N44 guys and with another massive donation today of £800 (a very very wonderful behind that I will let you know about) we have now raised over £6000 which means 15 veterans returning Once More Onto The Beach....

All is well and we aren't far off £7000 which is just outrageous - they support and help has been out of the world. I have been so over whelmed by it all. The generosity and good will received has left me at time rather emotional - special people giving to a special cause. The HMVF campaign has lit the touch paper for many other groups to donate money directly which is wonderful to know.

We have had donations sent from around the world. We have had donations from £4.97 from a child who sent in the their pocket money £800. It has struck at the hearts of many. We were working with The Sun newspaper before Christmas as they wanted to do a article on the campaign Unfortunately politics within the NVA meant that we had to pull it. I was completely disappointed with that as this is all about the bigger picture - not politics. The Wilts NVA were mentioned today but it was rather pointless as it had no focal point.

This has been one of the most proudest things that I have ever done and HMVF and everyone who has donated to our campaign should rightly be proud of taking part and putting something back. We won't have a chance like this again and I know first hand that the NVA have been speechless by the support that we have all given them. We could do a lot more but the UK culture doesn't work like the USA. Our veterans do not like a lot of fuss and would feel a little uncomfortable if they were asked to bring their profile up like their brothers in the US.

They are all special people and this is a special times.

Thanks Manny and to everyone else for your support.

Kind regards,

Jack.

_________________Jack BeckettDorset

HMVF – winners of the Bart Vanderveen award 2008. For outstanding contribution to the military vehicle movement.

I do not know the gentleman who sent me this but I have written him a letter of thanks. This campaign has touched many people.....very special. Currently we are just £900 off from getting our target of 20 veterans back to the beaches - great work everyone. Lets just have one more push and show them how much we all care.

_________________Jack BeckettDorset

HMVF – winners of the Bart Vanderveen award 2008. For outstanding contribution to the military vehicle movement.

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